Providing information, education, and training to build knowledge, develop skills, and change attitudes that will lead to increased independence, productivity, self determination, integration and inclusion (IPSII) for people with developmental disabilities and their families.

TAMPA, FLORIDA--Pinellas County Circuit Judge W. Douglas Baird
on Friday denied Governor Jeb Bush's request to throw out a lawsuit brought by
Terri Schiavo's husband and the American Civil Liberties Union which challenged
the law that is keeping her alive.

Judge Baird ordered Bush's attorneys to explain by Monday evening why he
should not declare "Terri's Law" unconstitutional.The legislature passed the
law on October 21, granting the governor authority to have Terri's gastronomy
tube reinstalled six days after it had been removed under another Circuit Court
judge's order. Immediately after the bill was signed and Terri's feeding tube
was reinserted, Michael Schiavo's attorneys, joined by the ACLU, sued the
governor for violating Terri's privacy. The suit also claimed that the
legislature and governor exceeded their authority by overriding the state
court's decisions.

The governor's attorneys had argued last week that the suit should have
been filed in Tallahassee instead of Tampa and that Bush had not been properly
notified of the suit. Judge Baird rejected that argument.

Mr. Schiavo, who is also Terri's guardian, had asked as early as 1998
for his wife's feeding tube to be removed according to what he has said would
have been her wishes. The courts have repeatedly sided with Mr. Schiavo.

Bush has recruited anti-abortion activist Ken Connor to head up his
legal team in the case. Connor intends to argue that, while Terri does have a
right to privacy, her right to life is more important.

"The state has a compelling interest in preserving human life," Connor
said Friday.

Terri collapsed on February 25, 1990 and her brain was without oxygen
for several minutes. Since then, she has been breathing on her own and
regulating her own blood pressure, but has been given nourishment and water
through the gastronomy tube installed in her stomach.

Several doctors have said that Terri, now 39, is in a "persistent
vegetative state", in which she can feel nothing and from which she cannot
recover. Since February 2000, Florida courts have agreed with Mr. Schiavo's
request to have the feeding tube removed, based on his assertion that she told
him before her collapse that she would not have wanted to live "by artificial
means".

Terri's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, have produced affidavits from
number of medical professionals who claim that she is alert, responsive and
that she might improve with rehabilitative therapies -- which Mr. Schiavo has
refused to allow for at least the last 10 years. They have fought Mr. Schiavo
in the courts to keep their daughter alive, and have petitioned to have him
removed as her guardian.

The Schindlers accuse their son-in-law of abusing and neglecting his
wife and bringing about her initial collapse. They also claim that he has
abandoned his role as Terri's husband by living for the past five years with
another woman, whom he calls his fiancée and with whom he has fathered
two children.

On Thursday, Bush sent a letter to Terri's court-appointed guardian ad
litem, asking to meet with him in person to express his own concerns for Terri
and to assist in "determining the scope" of his review. Jay Wolfson, the
University of South Florida professor who was appointed Terri's guardian ad
litem, had been instructed to determine certain facts regarding Terri's
condition and submit them with recommendations to the governor.

"I need to have a larger set of facts to explore and so I want to talk
to him about it," the governor explained.

Mr. Schiavo's attorneys called Bush's request "very inappropriate".

Disability rights groups have said that Terri's death by starvation
would reinforce the idea that the lives of people with certain disabilities are
not worth living. Disability and right-to-life groups are calling Bush's action
a victory in grassroots activism. The passage of "Terri's Law" came after the
governor's office and the legislature were swamped by more than 100,000 email
messages, most expressing outrage at the removal of Terri's feeding tube.

The Tallahassee Democrat reported on Friday that between 10,000 and
20,000 people in the U.S. are currently in a "persistent vegetative state".

The GCDD is funded under the provisions of P.L. 106-402. The federal law also provides funding to the Minnesota Disability Law Center,the state Protection and Advocacy System, and to the Institute on Community Integration, the state University Center for Excellence. The Minnesota network of programs works to increase the IPSII of people with developmental disabilities and families into community life.